


Pariah

by justanothersong



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Mild Angst, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-14 03:03:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7996216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanothersong/pseuds/justanothersong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I wanted to go slow. So did she,” Steve said, then scrubbed a hand over his face. He sat down on a stool alongside the kitchen island and dropped his head, staring at the floor. “Now I think she just… I mean, she thinks that I should… I don’t want to be some perfect gentleman, not all the time?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pariah

Steve Rogers was growing a little weary of his life in the spotlight, and you felt as though you were the only one who could see it. Perhaps that was true, but by design; perhaps you were the only one that he allowed to see him this way, so tired and restless.

You’d been working with the Avengers for less than a year, and Steve had started following you home about a month after you started. You had politely refused Tony’s offer to take up residence in the Tower; your privacy was important to you, after everything you had been through.

 

You had been brought onto the team because you possessed a unique ability to control the molecular structure of your own body, allowing you to become temporarily immaterial and phase through solid objects. Better still, with great concentration, you could exert that same power over anything you touched, allowing others to pass through a brick wall as though it were water. It had earned you the nickname of ‘the Living Ghost’, and it seemed to have stuck. Most of the others simply called you Ghost, though Steve always used your given name.

The media never hounded you the way they hounded him. He was supposed to be a paragon of virtue: Captain America, always stalwart and true. Your own beginnings were much less savory -- kidnapped by a shady uncle after your powers had presented, used by his gang in bank robberies and heists until your disgust outweighed your fear of him and you trapped him in a vault and called the police.

They had put you on trial; it had been broadcast on cable networks, months of testimony, your uncle and his cronies trying to blame it all on you, but you had been only a child, barely twelve when you’d finally had enough. You had been acquitted but you’d never been able to escape into obscurity, until you were recruited by SHIELD and suddenly obscurity was not an option anymore.

Still, you weren’t celebrated, not the way the others were. There had been a job early on in your uncle’s criminal career where you had been frightened and your hold on vault door had slipped; one of his men had been trapped inside.

It was an excruciating way to die. The trial prosecutor had tried to make it seem as though you had done it on purpose; you’d only been eight years old at the time.

It hung over your head in a way that the others’ pasts never seemed to touch them. Everyone knew where Natasha had gotten her start, but she was hailed as a hero for turning traitor to her cause and championing what was seen as the ‘right’ side. Bucky was remembered as a war hero held captive, returned after decades of suffering, in spite of all he had done as the Winter Soldier. You knew very well that it wasn’t his fault -- you could never blame him -- but it still burned a little, that so much horrific past could be ignored but yours stayed with you.

You suppose you couldn’t blame them. The trial had been quite the spectacle, and it had darkened your outlook to some degree as an adult. You wore dark clothes, spoke quietly and not at all often, and tried to keep to the shadows and corners. Away from everyone. Away from all of it.

Steve hadn’t been around for all of that, the trial and its aftermath, and you thought maybe that is why he had attached himself to you so quickly. You were quiet as well, didn’t make much in the way of conversation, and had simply nodded the first time he offered to walk you home, once the surprise wore off. After that you became a sounding board of sorts, someone he could speak to openly without fear of being judged or having his more candid thoughts repeated.

He hadn’t said it out right, not to begin with, but you could see that he was tired and needed someone who could keep his secrets. You felt privileged that he had chosen you.

 

“They treat me like I’m some kind of living relic,” he mused, late one night after a long mission had finally ended and brought the team home. You had been dead on your feet and he had taken out his bike to give you a lift, parking it outside the little apartment building where you lived and following you inside, like he always did when he came home with you.

“To them, you kind of are,” you spoke up quietly, pausing at your refrigerator to grab a bottle of water. You held out another in offering and he gave you a tired smile in thanks, snapping off the cap and downing half of it in one go.

“It’s not fair,” he told you, shaking his head. “I’m still trying to get used to this. Everything is so different. It’s been hard.”

“I can only imagine,” you told him, a soft sympathetic lilt to your voice. “Bucky might be able to understand it better than anyone else.”

Steve shook his head. “He got to be out in the world, you know? Saw some of the changes. Lived in it for a little while. Not that what he went through isn’t terrible -- I don’t mean to downplay that at all.”

You nodded. “I know,” you said.

“It’s just… I can’t bring this to him. How can I complain? I was asleep, while he was being tortured,” Steve said, the sorrow for his old friend evident in his voice.

“You can talk to me,” you said. “I may not understand completely, but I’d never judge.”

Steve gave you a weak smile. “I know that. You’re kind of special that way.”

You flushed a little in the dim lighting, hoping he wouldn’t see; you hadn’t flipped any switches upon entering your apartment and the only light was what streamed in through the windows from a streetlamp outside. You never offered much, only listened as he spoke, encouraged him where you could. It was easier that way, better to hide the way you marveled at the man.

Steve Rogers was like no one else you had ever met, and not by virtue of his old-fashioned upbringing. He was kind and thoughtful where others would only pity. He had been first to greet you upon your introduction to the team, reaching to shake your hand and grinning when his fingers slipped through your palm, gone suddenly immaterial with nerves.

“You’re amazing,” he had told you, eyes bright. It had been a compliment, something you could never recall getting without some measure of suspicion. It had filled you with a warmth unfamiliar to you and your nerves had settled, your fingers becoming solid again in his hand.

It wouldn’t be lying to say that you liked him very much. 

It wouldn’t be exaggerating to say that you maybe kind of loved him.

 

But the world expected better from their dear Captain; they were charmed by stories of his long lost love, and even more so that he should find solace in the arms of her distant relative, the lovely blonde all-American SHIELD agent, Sharon Carter.

It was the sort of thing the public fawned over, the way they fawned over Steve himself.

“I just want to be normal,” he told you with a sigh, pausing to finish his bottle of water and tossing it into your recycling bin without even a glance in its direction. It hit the plastic bin with a soft clunk, spinning around the bottom with the momentum of his throw before finally quieting.

“Now that’s something I can understand,” you told him with a small, sad smile.

His blue eyes met yours and he shook his head, saying your name softly in surprise before adding, “But you’re incredible.” You snorted, leaning over the kitchen island and clasping your hands together in front of you.

“I’m a freak,” you told him.

Steve offered you a small smile. “That makes two of us,” he said, giving a short laugh.

“Yeah, but you’re a beloved freak,” you told him, and winked.

He laughed again but it quickly turned into a sigh. “I’m just tired of it all. I am trying so hard to be a part of this time, this century, but everyone wants me to be some kind of living museum of the past. They have these ideas, you know? All romanticized, thinking I should be some perfect gentleman, all polished and old-fashioned and I just… I want… I _want_.”

“You’re human,” you replied. “Steve, you’re allowed that. You’re allowed to want things, to grow, to change. You don’t have to pretend to be some idealized version of old-fashioned virtue.”

“Yeah I do,” he told you, tone gone bitter. “Everyone wants that from me. Everyone expects that. ‘Cept you. You’ve never treated me like… like… God, I don’t even know.”

You shrugged at him, trying to seem nonchalant. “You’re just a regular guy at the end of the day, Steve. Why would I treat you any different?”

“I don’t know,” he said with a sigh, shaking his head. “But everyone does. Tony thinks I’m a prude, Bucky still thinks he has to protect me… I mean, for crying out loud, Sharon still seems to think I’m a virgin, for God’s sake.”

That caused you to raise your eyebrows. “You haven’t…?” you asked, letting the question trail off. It was probably more prying than it should have been, and you cursed your curiosity and the way the words had slipped from your mouth without thought. Steve got the third degree from the rest of the world on a daily basis; the least you could do was not join the onslaught.

He didn’t seem to mind, and shook his head. “I wanted to go slow. So did she,” he said, then scrubbed a hand over his face. He sat down on a stool alongside the kitchen island and dropped his head, staring at the floor. “Now I think she just… I mean, she thinks that I should… I don’t want to be some perfect gentleman, not all the time?”

He glanced up at you and gave a rueful smile. “That sounds terrible, doesn’t it?” he asked.

You took a sip of your water and shook your head. “Sounds human,” you replied. 

Steve smiled faintly at you and sighed. “You’re too good to me,” he told you quietly. “You never make me feel like a jerk, even when I’m bein’ one. It’s one of the reasons I like coming here so much. Gives a timeout from the real world. Something to look forward to.”

This time you knew he could see you blush. “You’re always welcome here, Steve,” you said quietly, and without thinking added. “I’d give you everything if I could.”

You wondered if he realized the implications of what you had said at first, but feeling his eyes on you as you made your way across your small apartment towards your bedroom to change out of your tactical gear, you knew that he did.

 

It happened for the first time a month or so after that. He had taken you home again, walking the short distance alongside you this time, reveling in the chill in the air and the way it made you both feel alive after all that had happened on the latest mission.

It had been difficult. There had been a few injuries. Luckily, you had both escaped unharmed this time around.

One moment you were talking quietly, running over all that had gone wrong and all that could have been done better, and in the next Steve was kissing you, soft and slow and so very sweet. He held your face in his hands when he pulled away, blue eyes searching yours as he asked, “Is this okay?”

Too dumbfounded to form words you had simply nodded, and then there were his lips again, skating across yours, hands slipping to your hips and holding you close. You let him undress you, watching as his strong hands pulled at the zippers and buckles of your gear, baring you to his touch.

He stayed until morning, and kissed you on the forehead before he left.

It didn’t become a constant, not for some time. You could always tell when Steve was hitting a rough patch, because he’d show up at your door even on days you weren’t working, eyes wide and sad and begging for admittance; you never turned him away.

You tried to pretend it wasn’t killing you, just a little, every night you lay in his arms only to lose him in the morning light. You wanted to give him whatever comfort you could but it still hurt to know that there was nothing more to it but that, a few hours of pleasure and a gentle kiss in parting. You understood by then that you were in love with Steve, grasping at whatever scraps he would throw your way.

Sometimes you felt selfish. But you never felt used. He never made you feel cheap, and for that you were grateful. You kept telling yourself that you could be happy, just taking what you could get, for as long as you could.

 

It changed, this thing between the two of you, months later. Another mission, another rough go out in the field; Natasha had nearly been caught in an unexpected spray of gunfire but you grabbed her wrist quickly and let them pass through, leaving her unharmed. You phased back too quickly and left yourself with an exit wound with no entrance, a bullet stopped by suddenly material muscle in your forearm, falling out onto the ground before you.

It wasn’t so bad, outside of the pain, but Steve hadn’t left your side until they finished stitching you up and declared you healthy enough to go on your way.

It was late by then, Tony insisting you stay the night in one of the guest rooms at the Tower, and you grudgingly acquiesced. Steve volunteered to lead you to a free room but took you to his own instead, a possessive hand splayed across your lower back until you were both out of sight. He crushed you against the wall of the elevator, kissing you so rough and frantically that it stole your breath away.

“I almost lost you,” he whispered, the words coming back time and again as he laid you out across his bed and took his time taking you apart. 

When morning light began drifting into his bedroom, you thought that you were meant to leave, but Steve only smiled sleepily at you and held you closer, drifting back into slumber until you could do nothing else but join him.

After that, you began staying at the Tower more frequently. If Tony knew that none of the guest rooms ever needed cleaning or linens changed, he never spoke on it.

The way he would sometimes watch you when you spoke with Steve, smiling in your quiet conversations, made you think he knew.

 

Tony threw some kind of gala early that summer, something to do with one of his philanthropic endeavors, though you paid little attention as he spoke about it. You had a standing invitation to attend, all of the team did, but you had never made an appearance. You knew better; the people who bought tickets came to see their heroes, not the team pariah. 

Steve was going, of course; Captain America was a mainstay, his golden-girl girlfriend always on his arm, smiling for the cameras. You tried not to be jealous.

“I wish you would come,” he said quietly as you straightened his tie. It wasn’t black tie this time, so a suit would do; you had convinced him to stray from his usual simple black, helping his choose a dark blue suit with a waistcoat that brought out the color of his eyes. 

Sharon’s dress would be white, and you thought bitterly to yourself how appropriate it seemed.

“Not my kind of scene,” you told him nonchalantly. “Too many nosy people. Too many cameras. Besides, they all think I’m too spooky. I’d just make everyone uncomfortable.”

Steve took your hand in his, holding it in place where you had been straightening his tie and rubbing his thumb across your palm.

“Not me,” he told you, smiling a little.

“Sharon thinks I’m spooky,” you replied, watching as his smile fell.

You let go of his hand and turned away, moving to sit and stretch out across his couch. 

“Go, have fun,” you told him. “Dance. Eat, drink, be merry, all that. I’ll be here when you’re through.”

He hesitated at the door, but eventually walked out. You sighed to yourself and turned on the television, watching the local news broadcast people arriving for the party and wondering, not for the first time, just what you had gotten yourself into.

 

You fell asleep sometime after watching Steve make his grand entrance, Sharon smiling on his arm. You took some comfort in the way he touched her, delicately and often only with the tips of his fingers. It was never reaching and possessive, the way he touched you. 

And still. She was the one, there on his arm, the perfect couple before dozens of flashing cameras, while you watched it all unfold on the television.

 

You don’t remember what you dreamed that night, only that when you woke, you had a feeling of dread seated in the pit of your stomach. It was late, well past midnight, and Steve was knelt beside you alongside the couch, a gentle hand on your shoulder as he tried to wake you.

You squinted in the light of the television screen and you opened your mouth to speak, but Steve shook his head to stop you.

“I can’t do this anymore,” he said, and you felt as though you had been punched straight in the gut. You should have known this was coming, after all; no couple could ‘take it slow’ as long as he and Sharon had been. You should have known that sooner or later, she’d want him completely, and you’d lose the little niche you had carved out in his life.

You opened your mouth to speak again, but no words came. Why now? Why couldn’t he have waited, at least until the morning came and you could have handled it with a clear head?

“I can’t keep up all the pretending, the lying. I feel awful about it,” Steve went on, mouth set in a firm line as he spoke. 

You nodded slowly, and started to sit up. You had only a few things in his place, a toothbrush, a few odd articles of clothing. It wouldn’t take long to gather them all up and spirit them away to a guest room, at least for the night. Then you’d stop spending nights at the Tower, return to your lonely little apartment for good. It was for the best.

You were surprised when he took your face in his hands.

“How could you let me keep on pretending that I wanted anyone other than you?” he murmured, and kissed you soundly.

You couldn’t breathe; your hands covered his against your skin and you kissed him back but couldn’t close your eyes, confused and astounded, certain you had misheard him. When he pulled away, you gaped.

“Me?” you asked, breathless. “You’re choosing me?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Steve asked, seemingly as surprised at your shock as you were at his decision. “Don’t you understand? I… you’re… you’re _everything_. You’re my everything.”

You would have thought you were still dreaming, if not for the uncomfortable cramp in your shoulder from the way you had slept, if not for the low cackle of some television advertisement playing in the background. It was real, it was so very real, and it was Steve, and he wanted you.

“But I’m not!” you said, shaking your head. “I’m not… I’m not good, like she is, and people think… people will… the cameras, Steve, and… I’m not right for you, I’m not!”

“You’re perfect,” he told you, and he was smiling now, thumb sweeping across your lower lip. “God, you’re so perfect, you always have been.”

You wanted to protest but Steve kissed you again, your words lost in his embrace. Later, when you rested quietly with your head on his chest, body still slick with the sweat of your lovemaking, he explained quietly all that had gone on.

How he couldn’t stop thinking of you, alone on the upper floors of the Tower, while he was at another party full of people only there to gain a glimpse of their so-called superheroes.

How he was watching the clock, just wishing it to move faster so he could escape.

How he hadn’t even realized how little attention he had been paying his ‘date’ until she smiled, put her hand on his arm and said softly that she didn’t think she was all that boring.

How he had told her then, that he couldn’t keep this up anymore. That he didn’t think it was real, didn’t think they were real. How he had told her there was someone else, someone he had fallen for ages ago and couldn’t bear to hurt anymore.

Sharon had smiled at him gently, nodded her head, and said she understood. Wouldn’t even accept an apology. It wasn’t his fault, she had told him. She’d let herself get swept away in the idea of him, a romantic story passed down in her family for years. That she liked him very much but couldn’t see them as anything but friends, and she had clung to their little charade for the sake of a daydream.

Steve had thanked her and asked if she minded if he left.

She had smiled and told him to go on, wishing him well. Told him to tell you hello, and that there were no hard feelings, because she had known somehow, always known.

Known before even you did, before even he did, that Steve loved you.

 

There was no simple way to tell the others so you decided not to say anything at all. You just appeared at breakfast together the next morning; you wore one of Steve’s t-shirts and a pair over oversized sweatpants with a drawstring waist and were practically swimming in them. You even had to hold up the hems of the pants to keep from tripping, which made Steve smile at you almost shyly, your hand enclosed in his own.

The others didn’t react much at all, though you saw a small smile quirk on Bucky’s lips as he surveyed his friend, and Natasha nudged Clint in the side before nodding in your direction. 

She grabbed two muffins from a basket on the counter and sauntered over, handing one off to you; you looked down in surprise to see that it was your favorite, an orange-cranberry from a bakery nearby.

Natasha took a seat and plucked a berry from her own pastry, popping it into her mouth before saying, “I can lend you something to wear, you know. You’re gonna trip all over the place if you keep stealing Steve’s clothes.

She smiled at you, just a small little grin, and everyone went about their morning business. Steve brought you a cup of coffee and sat down next to you, dropping a kiss behind your ear before stealing a piece of your muffin.

“You might as well just move in… like I told you to months ago,” Tony commented mildly, eyes on the newspaper open in front of him. A murmur of agreement rose among the group and you realized, much to your surprise, that perhaps you weren’t such an outcast after all.


End file.
